OUR CHANGING WORLD

 

Lately Ouida and I have been reading in bed to each other Carl Ketcherside’s Pilgrimage of Joy, which was originally published in serial form in this journal. It has been so long that it was as if we had never read it, and we found it both delightful and nostalgic. It was like another visit with Carl, with the humor as impressive as ever. He tells how the folk in the church he grew up in were slow readers and sometimes misunderstood what a verse said, such as the dear old sister who read, “Jacob stole away from Laban unawares,” and understood it to say that Jacob stole away from Laban in his underware!

Ouida’s care of Mother Pitts has become more critical of late in that her mother seems to be no longer capable of bearing any of her own weight when we move her, as we do several times a day. She collapses on us and has to be carried, which is sometimes painful for her. Ouida talked to her doctor and he advises that from this point on she might have to be bedfast. We follow our old rule of taking the days one at a time and so far we are making it. Ouida still has one day out during the week for Bible study (?) with “the girls” and shopping, while I keep the store.

My dear old friend Perry Gresham, one time president of Bethany College, sent me a sample of the column he does for The West Virginia Hillbilly entitled “The Old Professor.” In this installment he wrote on an old Scottish toast, “May the hinges of friendship never rust, and may the wings of love never lose a feather.” He noted that friendship requires an exchange of greeting and a bit of conversation from time to time lest its hinges grow rusty. He said it is sad to see old couples quarreling and yelling at each other in anger and hate. They are like sparrows caught in a badminton game. Love finds soaring difficult when too many feathers have been lost.

At their recent annual gathering in Boston of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, the officials reaffirmed their belief that divine healing has an important role in humanity’s search for better health. They observed that Christians of many denominations are today involved in healing through prayers for the sick. More and more people have found Christian healing a practical possibility. Such gatherings of Christian Science leaders are never given to argument or debate, and no votes are taken. Final decisions are made by a five-member self-perpetuating board of directors, which oversees 2,600 churches in 68 countries. Each church is, however, congregational in government. The Mother Church in Boston is central headquarters as well as a congregation. To belong to the Mother Church one must make application. It has members from 55 nations, but it is against the bylaws to reveal the number of members.

There is still one town in the world that speaks the language of Jesus in its daily affairs. Maaloula, Syria, tucked in the mountains 40 miles from Damascus, speaks Aramaic just as Jesus did. Aramaic was once spoken all across the Middle East, but it is now virtually extinct, and the encroachment of the modem world threatens its use in Maaloula. While in the time of Jesus Greek was widely spoken, the Jews continued to speak Aramaic. Our English Bibles have a few lines in Aramaic, such as Jesus ‘prayer on the cross, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?”

The World Bible Translation Center, a Church of Christ mission with offices in Fort Worth, Tx., sponsors a Moscow Bible Center in Russia. It reports that since the attempted coup the people are more interested than ever in the Bible and things religious. A Church of Christ of a dozen are so members now meets in the Moscow Center, and each Sunday they have more visitors than they have members. The mission plans to open other Bible centers in Russia. Part of their mission is to distribute Russian Bibles to those who request them. Thus far 600,000 have been printed and distributed.

If you wonder how Billy Graham managed to have 250,000 people for his one-day crusade in New York City’s Central Park, the largest crowd ever to gather in the park, it was because a lot of legwork was done. Hundreds of volunteers blitzed the city distributing two million visitation brochures door-to-door, in subway and bus stations, and in the streets. Fifty teams of street evangelists held rallies a week before the big event. Materials were distributed in 16 different languages. Some 500 churches of 40 denominations cooperated, including vigorous support from Roman Catholics who had 200 parishes preparing for the event. Graham’s theme was the love of God, drawn from Jn. 3:16. Is this an example of the unity we talk about?

We regret to report the death of Jim Hance, an old friend who has written for this paper in years past. He was recently killed along with his wife in an auto accident near Hamilton, Texas. Two cars met in a fierce head-on collision, killing three people in each car. All six were members of the Church of Christ. Jim was a delightful person and a preacher of the grace of God. He once ministered to a Church of Christ here in Denton.